NATO's Dual-Track Decision

Thirtieth Anniversary of NATO's Dual-Track Decision

A U.S. Army photograph of the mobile Pershing II deployed in an unidentified woodlands location. (Photo from U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal Web site)

The Road to the Euromissiles Crisis and the End of the Cold War

Washington, D.C., December 10, 2009 - Thirty years ago, on 12 December 1979, NATO defense and foreign ministers made a landmark decision designed to unify the alliance, but which also contributed to the collapse of détente and helped provide an agenda for the end of the Cold War. On the anniversary of the NATO "dual-track" decision that linked deployments of U.S. long-range theater nuclear forces (LRTNF) to proposals for negotiations with Moscow over those and Soviet forces, the National Security Archive publishes for the first time a selection of declassified U.S. documents that record some of the key developments in the U.S. and NATO decision-making processes.

NATO leaders saw the "dual-track" decision as a response to Soviet long-range forces targeting Europe and as a way ultimately to roll them back, yet the Soviet leadership saw the NATO plan as a threatening escalation of the nuclear arms race. Indeed, some in Moscow saw the NATO decision as the "last drop" that made them feel they had nothing to lose by invading Afghanistan...>>>>>

New Evidence on Bush Administration

New Evidence that Bush Administration Impeded 3 Investigations into Alleged Massacre of Up to 2,000 Prisoners in Afghanistan

July 10, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Human rights group that discovered the mass grave and sued for release of government documents is available for comment.

Cambridge, MA-Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002.

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.......Rest of Press Release Here with more back links.

Russian Georgian Conflict

Pepe Escobar: Georgia is a strategic client state of the US with close ties to the Bush administration



Georgian troops launched an aerial bombardment and ground attack on its separatist province of South Ossetia on Thursday. South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. Seeing this as an act of aggression Russia launched bombing raids against Georgia, vowing to defend its citizens. More than half of South Ossetia's citizens are said to have taken up Moscow's offer of a Russian passport. Pepe Escobar believes that "the hypocrisy of the international community knows no bounds for if the West forced the issue of Kosovar independence then the independence of South Ossetia should also be on the cards."

The geopolitics of Georgia

F William Engdahl: There are far bigger stakes being played out in Georgia than a territorial dispute



US attempts to get Georgia into NATO, coupled with its desire to erect an anti-missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech republic would give it first strike capability towards Russia. Moscow sees this as a national security threat against the sovereignty of Russia. Political economist F William Engdahl believes this is the geopolitical endgame being played out in Georgia.